Semiconductor devices are found in many products used in modern society. Semiconductors find applications in consumer items such as entertainment, communications, and household items markets. In the industrial or commercial market, semiconductors are found in military, aviation, automotive, industrial controllers, and office equipment.
The manufacture of semiconductor devices begins with formation of a wafer having a plurality of die. Each die contains hundreds or thousands of transistors and other electrical devices for performing one or more electrical functions. For a given wafer, each die from the wafer performs the same electrical function. Front-end manufacturing generally refers to formation of the transistors on the wafer. Back-end manufacturing refers to cutting or singulating the finished wafer into the individual die and then packaging the die for structural support and environmental isolation.
The package has external metal contacts for propagating electrical signals into and out of the die. The die has a number of bonding pads which are connected to the external contacts of the package by wire bonds. Wire bonding provides an electrical interconnect between the semiconductor device and other circuitry external to the semiconductor package. The wire bonds are used to make connections between pads at the active surface of the die and bond sites on a lead frame or bond fingers on the substrate.
Wire bonding typically involves an electrolytic plating process that uses a plating buss to apply a layer of gold (bout 0.5 microns) over a layer of nickel (about 5-10 microns). Unfortunately, the plating buss occupies space, which is problematic in high density designs. In addition, the plating buss causes undesirable parasitic effects and requires another processes step to remove the buss. It is desirable to eliminate the nickel-based electroplating process and platting buss from the wire bonding requirements.